The view from the window is superb. Before us, in front of the little grey church, the river runs down to the sea, now gently, now turbulently. To the right a peep of the ocean. To the left the bridge, through the arches of which is a glimpse of landscape as peaceful as any Tuscan village, and over which the trains pass intermittently up to the front by day and by night. They rush past with a whistle that is more of a shriek and a groan, as if they themselves realised the value of their burden—the guns, the ammunition wagons, the trainloads of men in khaki or in blue clustered along the edge of the overcrowded trucks designed to carry "eighteen horses or thirty-six men."
In contrast with the rushing up-trains the loaded ambulances crawl creakingly down at a snail's pace.
God! That such things should be! If the heart of the world were big enough, surely it would break at so much misery, so much destruction. For what have all previous generations laboured, legislating, studying to salve human ills? For this! Wanton destruction, rapine, murder.
February 21st. These are exciting times. Last night there was the sound of guns at sea. An engagement off Dover is recounted, but papers no longer get through to us. A sudden explosion about five o'clock the same day, and the subsequent report of a sunken hospital ship, afterwards said to have been a neutral (Dutch?) liner, leaves us with but the vaguest idea of what really happened.
Just as the doctor, a kindly little man, who was invalided down some weeks ago from his field ambulance at B——, had appeared, stethoscope in hand, all attention was riveted on a funeral that passed by—that of a nursing sister who has just died of the fatal spotted fever. The flower-bedecked coffin, the whole available hospital unit marching slowly with arms reversed, made an impressive sight. One wondered if she had ever received so much attention in her lifetime as at her death. The doctor told me that in India, where the intense heat is sometimes conducive to suicide, the fear of not having a military funeral often acts as a deterrent.
"THE BRIDGE, THROUGH THE ARCHES OF WHICH IS A GLIMPSE OF LANDSCAPE AS PEACEFUL AS ANY TUSCAN VILLAGE"
No sooner was the cortège past than a broken aeroplane rolled by on a heavy trolley, and left us wondering if that was the crash we heard yesterday.